I've said this before and maybe overstated the case before. I'd love for totally reworked ship interiors to play host to HUNDREDS of missions.

But let's say they didn't do hundreds.

Frankly, space maps take less time and energy to produce a serviceable gameplay map.

And if they built better stock interiors (maybe with additional trophy-type slots scattered around including choice of warmcores, custom colors and lighting) and leveraged their use more, I think we could get a lot more than 10-15 episodes in 2012 by using the ship interior sets heavily.

There's the proviso in there that they might have to remake content for each style of interior (or they could -- don't shoot me -- relocate all replica interiors to the holodeck and have one basic interior kit with custom colors, reworked from the ground up). And Klingons would require their own NPC placement. And you likely couldn't have away teams and your crew would be represented by NPCs costumed like your BOs (all of them, not just 4).

But if they made the interior a core location in all upcoming FEs AND added social gameplay to the non-mission versions, I think they could really use that to balloon out their content plans in a way that's consistent with the shows. (And have space maps crop up in the interior missions organically.)

Take those 13 episodes. Imagine you spend half of them in your ship interior or accompanying space maps. That might double the content to 26 episodes or 5 FE series.

Well the TOS Consitution an the upcoming canonical Defiant interiors are a very good start. And having new interiors and canonical ones at that would be a massive boon for the Foundry. Instead of making the full architecture of a ship, they just need to focus on important floors on a starship and make the hallways convincing enough. Just like they did with the actual sets.

But the thing is, with interiors Cryptic has to make multiple uses than something that's going to be tossed aside, like the bridges are now. (For example having to go to your bridge to replay missions).

Well the TOS Consitution an the upcoming canonical Defiant interiors are a very good start. And having new interiors and canonical ones at that would be a massive boon for the Foundry. Instead of making the full architecture of a ship, they just need to focus on important floors on a starship and make the hallways convincing enough. Just like they did with the actual sets.

But the thing is, with interiors Cryptic has to make multiple uses than something that's going to be tossed aside, like the bridges are now. (For example having to go to your bridge to replay missions).

Right but I'm just saying if they had missions set there (ie. talk to contact, kill enemies, etc.) that would have to speed up production.

Right but I'm just saying if they had missions set there (ie. talk to contact, kill enemies, etc.) that would have to speed up production.

Repel the boarders? I for one wouldn't mind Klingons beaming over to my bridge and I have to fight them off. No more Borg though. Romulans sneaking around my engineering deck trying to sabotage my ship would be fun as well.

Repel the boarders? I for one wouldn't mind Klingons beaming over to my bridge and I have to fight them off. No more Borg though. Romulans sneaking around my engineering deck trying to sabotage my ship would be fun as well.

The way I see it, anymission that could be set on the ground could be seton a ship. Talking to people,puzzles, killing, Duty Officer assignments. You just need mission versions of the maps that are wired to use the right textures and ship trophies.

Just make it sufficiently awesome looking as a default model.

Overall...

I'd piggyback off the work done on replicas like the TOS set.

Have 5 interiors:

Small - Defiant
Medium - Intrepid
Large - Sovereign

Now, I'd gussy them up as 2409 interiors for the stock in-game versions and sell the classic decor schemes on the C-Store.

To simplify things, any schemes that don't fit into these types would be an offshoot from the holodeck. I realize that might drive some TOS pack purchasers crazy but they're retain full access to their replica as a social hub. Maybe do the same for other ship types. Longterm, have custom decks you can make from any template.

But you have to restrict the basic geometry of the ones that will be standard mission maps to a narrow range so that setting up missions for any interior remains feasible. Like I say, some custom elements like the trophies, maybe extending to warpcore, table type, paintings, lighting, and colors/textures. But nothing that would drastically impact combat so that NPCs can be placed on the map.

I'd have it so that the contacts get dressed like the team leader's BOs and the walls/trophies look like those on the team leader's ship.

Like I say, 2409 gussied up versions for free, "classic" decos for legacy players. Anything non-standard like existing bridge purchases gets hooked up as a "Battle Bridge" on a deck where missions won't take place and the TOS interior gets hooked up as a social hub off the holodeck. 'Cause you need to limit the number of variable geometry things in a standard deck.

Maybe as a compromise, let people continue using the TOS interior as their main "starting point" but if they want to access missions that use the interior, they get an option from the bridge to "end program" dumping them in a modern holodeck. From there they can go run modern missions on a modern ship interior.

Right but I'm just saying if they had missions set there (ie. talk to contact, kill enemies, etc.) that would have to speed up production.

I wouldn't say speed up production but instead ramp up the interest and diverting resources to do it. Remember what Stahl said a long time ago with Interiors is that they wanted functionality, so it wouldn't be purely storytelling but more like player importance.

For example:

Engineering - Improve your Ship's Warp and Power systems.

Science Labs - Doing Resarch (Science Crafting)

Shuttle Bay - Switching to Shuttles

Transporter Room - Beam down to a location. (Be important for the Foundry).

Astrometrics - If actual Exploration is implemented, players surely would have to come here to learn of new discoveries, new (and safe) routes, and plot around dangerous hazards.

And some interiors like on larger ships could even be reused for a more dynamic Ground PvP map, like players having to raise / lower force fields, etc to get to the goal.

I'm really rather surprised that Cryptic hasn't done this already...and I'm not sure why I'm surprised in light of other things they've done. But really...when you watch *any* series of Star Trek, I would venture to guess that about 85% of the episodes happen *on* the ship. Yet, we have no missions that happen on our ship with the exception of the mission that takes 3 minutes to decode a message in your ready room or so some of the diplomatic missions where you're actually locked in your conference room (a room that doesn't exist at any other time). Really rather ridiculous that we don't have more.

Honestly, I dont want to do full length missions on my ship. I do think there should be "mini-games" that take place on your ship(poker and maybe Doff missions that can only be started from certain departments like medical, engineering, etc) as well as being able to craft and purchase some supplies from vendors in Ten Forward and the like. But FE type missions? I'd prefer to keep those on strange new worlds and in space.

Honestly, I dont want to do full length missions on my ship. I do think there should be "mini-games" that take place on your ship(poker and maybe Doff missions that can only be started from certain departments like medical, engineering, etc) as well as being able to craft and purchase some supplies from vendors in Ten Forward and the like. But FE type missions? I'd prefer to keep those on strange new worlds and in space.

The shows were more situated on the ships than on strange new worlds and the whole point is to advance story faster by using good, versatile sets.